


Lesson

by storiesfortravellers



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Corporal Punishment, Discipline, Emotions, F/M, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, Maledom, Natasha Feels, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Praise, Punishment, Spanking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-05
Updated: 2016-07-05
Packaged: 2018-07-21 15:50:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7393681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storiesfortravellers/pseuds/storiesfortravellers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-Civil War, Natasha thinks T'Challa should punish her so they can get past any lingering resentment. It's more emotionally draining than Natasha thinks it will be.</p><p>For this prompt at avengerkink on lj: T'challa spanks Natasha for letting Steve and Bucky get away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lesson

**Author's Note:**

> No sex but contains nonconsensual or at least under-negotiated and non-SSC physical punishment, as well as using discipline/kink for emotional/relationship negotiation and other things that would be problematic in real life.

It was a meeting in Canada about trade policy, a few days with photo ops in Ottawa with T’Challa and Justin Trudeau in well-tailored suits, but they finished early, and word had it that the king of Wakanda was spending a day in Toronto to meet with some nonprofits based there about potential collaborations on continuing Sokovian relief efforts.

Natasha tracked him to a restaurant and sat a few tables away, ordered a glass of wine, and waited for him to notice her.

It didn’t take long for him to get up and walk over to her table, gesturing for his security to stay back.

He stood close to her, looking down at her as she sat. “I’m impressed with your skills,” he said.

“Oh?” she asked, a little blank; she wanted to let him read what he wanted into her reaction.

He cracked a smile, seeming to immediately sense what she was doing. “I didn’t even realize I was being tracked. It’s not often I’m fooled by someone.” He leaned a little on the last phrase, a reminder of their last encounter.

“I never intended to fool you.”

“Why are you here, Agent Romanov?” His voice was steady, but his gaze was firm, fixed. It made her nervous, strangely – not nervous that she would have to fight him, but somehow nervous that he would despise her, that he would always be upset with her. It wasn’t sensible to feel that way, to care, and she started to wonder if she was lying to herself about why she came.

“To let you know that Tony has cleared up my little misunderstanding with General Ross, and I’ll be returning to the Avengers soon.”

“Misunderstanding?” He did a good job balancing the warning in his tone with a vague sense of amusement at her audacity. She wondered if this was a well-practiced royal voice or something just for her.

She tilted her head. “I know that you’ve been working with Tony and Vision on some projects. When I return, we might end up working together. And… I also know that you’ve been helping the other part of my team.”

“So you are still playing both sides.”

“I still care about everyone on my team,” she said pointedly. 

He paused, then nodded, waiting for more. 

She continued, “So whether working with Steve or working with Tony, the two of us might need to be allied at some point again… if you’re willing…. I understand if you’re not, but I’d like to try and make things right between us.” She gave him a business-like tone, even though a more friendly one might have been more effective, wondering why her impulse was to deny a personal drive to be there.

He sat in the chair next to her, and stared right at her. She did her best not to swallow, reminding herself that she had faced off with brutes and monsters and aliens without flinching. But this felt different, somehow. 

“And _how_ do you intend to make things right with me?” he asked, eyebrow raised.

“What do you propose?” she asked, keeping her face neutral. This was business. _Wasn’t it?_

He leaned back in his chair. He wasn’t about to give her an easy answer. “Your friends. Barnes and Rogers. I attacked them because I was misled. It was the least I could do to help them when I realized what had happened.”

“I’m glad they have your help,” she said, letting her voice show just a little how much she meant it; she hated to think where Steve would be right now without T’Challa providing haven for Bucky.

“They were right to fight me. But you… you recruited me as your ally only to turn against me.” 

She nodded. “I apologize. I didn’t plan to change sides at the time. And I never intended to cause you… turmoil.”

He gazed at her, hard, but then his face relaxed just slightly. “You are aware that at the time, I viewed it as betrayal. You were standing between me and the man who killed my father.”

“I know. And for making you feel that way, I truly am sorry.”

He nodded. “I believe you. And I see now that you were on the right side. But I must wonder if you could have tried to convince me instead of attacking me with that rather annoying toy.”

She grimaced. ‘Annoying’ wasn’t as accurate as ‘excruciating’ when it came to the Taser disks, she knew. 

He continued, “And later, when I wanted to confront you, to demand answers, you had retreated to Stark’s facility. You won me to your cause, then attacked me, then ran from me instead of facing me for what you had done.”

“It was…”

“A difficult time. I know. And I see how, from your perspective, you were doing what had to be done. But you did not attempt to explain yourself to me, even after it was over. You simply disappeared.”

“You looked for me,” she realized suddenly.

“… Not for retaliation, if that’s what you're wondering. But yes, I wanted you to explain to me, eye to eye, why you acted as you did. To clear up what was truth, and what was lies. But you were nowhere to be found. So you might see how, from my perspective, you are a difficult person to trust.”

“Again, I apologize,” she said. She meant it, and hoped she seemed like she meant it, but she didn’t add the veneer of false sweetness, of sentiment, that she would have with a mission target. “I don’t regret helping Steve, but I do regret what I did to you.”

He studied her for a moment, then said, “I accept your apology. And I will work with you when and if any of our mutual friends would benefit from it. But as for how you will make things right, it’s not so simple. I wish it were, but I don’t think it is.”

He looked at her expectantly, and for the life of her, she couldn’t tell if he were saying it to get in her head or if he really wanted to reconcile but didn’t know how.

“Then let’s work together for now, and in time, I’ll think of a way,” she proposed.

He actually let out half a smile. “You’re a good bargainer, Agent Romanov. Perhaps I should have you on my trade team.”

“I already have a job,” she pointed out. “And you can call me Natasha.”

 

\--

They worked together for months before Natasha brought it up again. They were a good team, helping Tony and Vision with official missions and Steve, Sam, and Clint with unofficial ones. They even went on a few on their own, projects that were important to Wakandan security, and a couple times Natasha even asked him to help on a personal mission (the kind she occasionally did to help balance out her ledger). They got along, focused and working well on missions, with enough banter to keep it interesting, and a few good laughs now and then. He lived by a code, always vigilant about protecting bystanders but warrior enough to accept what sometimes had to be done with enemies. He was also incredibly protective of people he cared about, but didn't like to push others into his way of thinking, so they had long conversations about the foibles of their mutual friends with the tacit agreement that they would only intervene if requested unless things really hit the fan. They had, surprisingly, a lot in common.

They were something like friends soon enough. But Natasha sensed that there was still a distance between them. She deduced that it was partly growing up as a prince, but she knew that a lot of it was that he, as he said he would, still had trouble trusting her. And, she observed without self-pity, it seemed like the most honorable men she knew tended to take quite a while to decide if she could be trusted.

“So, any thoughts on what we talked about in Toronto?” she asked one afternoon, sitting down as he looked up in surprise. He was at a coffee shop a few blocks away from Avengers Tower, working on some equipment design on his laptop, and she had managed to track him without him noticing (again).

He smiled, used to it by now. “We talked about many things.”

“How I can make things right.”

“… You’ve been a good ally. And a good friend.”

“Thank you. But I want to make up for what I did.”

“… Maybe we should forget about it. All our friends are moving past the wounds of that battle.”

“No, they’re not,” she said, a little brittle. Tony didn’t despise Steve any more, but they weren’t friends again either. Sam had sneaked in several times to check on Rhodey but otherwise stayed away. Wanda hadn’t been in contact with any of them, not that Natasha blamed her after what she heard of the Raft. Clint, thankfully, had forgiven her easily, only holding a slight grudge against Tony that mostly manifested in sarcastic remarks.

“Tell me what you want, then,” he said, and it sounded gentle but somehow like an order.

She paused. “Punish me.”

He looked at her.

“I know you want to,” she said, daring him to disagree. “The day I threw the Disk at you, you wanted to then. And I can sense that you’d still like to.”

“Punish you how?” he asked, voice perfectly controlled. Too controlled, meaning that he liked the idea and didn’t want to show how much, she concluded.

“I haven’t decided yet. But it can be something… very unpleasant. Harsh, even. But when it’s done, things are right between us. Okay?”

“Have I given you the impression that things aren’t right between us?”

 _Yes_ , she wanted to answer. They had never had that spark of closeness, that hint that he wanted to close the distance between them, since she had turned against him in battle.

“No,” she said, smiling sweetly. “But I think you want to punish me. And I think it would help us. In our working relationship.”

“In our working relationship. Of course,” he said, looking at her with amusement, which, she had to admit, annoyed her a little.

“So will you?” she said. She felt a little anxious in her stomach, and she wasn’t entirely sure if she were worried he would say yes or worried he would say no.

He reached out and placed his hand over hers. “If you think it’s a good idea. But if we agree to this, then I will choose the punishment. And you will submit to whatever punishment I determine.”

She tensed, but looked at his face. He wanted this; he wanted her to trust him. 

She did, actually. He wouldn’t do anything to seriously harm her, she knew. Though she did have a feeling he wasn’t afraid to cause a little pain to make his point. Which she didn’t really mind, to be honest with herself.

“I agree. You’ll punish me however you see fit,” she said, not bothering to hide a smile. 

It was hard for her not to see it as a small victory, even if she wasn’t sure why.

\--

That evening, Natasha was in T’Challa’s hotel room, naked from the waist down, bent over T’Challa’s lap. 

She had suspected corporal punishment of some sort. Something a little less childlike, though. Something more violent and less… embarrassing. She had been imagining it all day. Would he strip her naked? Beat her? Slap her face? Shock her with the same weapons she had used on him? 

Instead, he had told her that she was to receive a very hard thrashing. Over his knee. 

The bare skin of her rear felt cool in the air conditioning, and this was somehow so much more exposed, so much more nerve-wracking, than if he had simply stripped her naked and tortured her through some conventional means. 

He rubbed his hand over her ass, building anticipation. 

He asked once more, “Are you sure you want to submit to this punishment? It will not be a light spanking, Natasha. It will be quite intense.” 

Her breath quickened. “I’m sure.”

He paused. “You must admit that you deserve this punishment.”

“Of course. I deserve to be punished,” she said. She tried to make it a line, to not let her head get clouded with all the ways that this was true, with all the red threads of her past.

His hand came down on her ass with a loud smack. 

It stung. He wasn’t hitting with his full strength, she could tell, but he was hardly going light either. He was planning to make this hurt.

He smacked her ass again, twice quickly. She inhaled quickly.

He seemed to pause just long enough to gauge if she was all right to continue, then he spanked her again, several times in a row. 

She found herself breathing a little hard already. Which didn’t make sense – she could withstand actual torture without breaking a sweat.

He settled into a rhythm then, spanking her hard, again and again and again, and she could feel the burn slowly grow, blossom into a dark sharp heat. She knew that her ass must be getting redder and redder. She wanted to squirm against his arm holding her but she didn’t want him to think she was resisting his punishment, so she did her best to stay still as he slapped her ass and thighs again and again and again. The blows to her sit spot hurt the worst, almost made her kick her legs in reaction.

She closed her eyes and concentrated on the sensation, tried to savor the feeling of being punished against her will. The pain built up, cumulative, over long minutes; looking at the clock, she saw that it had been 30 minutes of his hand coming down on her, though it felt like so much longer. Her ass felt raw, brutalized, from just his hand, the repetition of it making the spanking far more painful, more difficult to endure, than she had imagined. She barely even noticed that she had started moaning with each slap, that her face was wet with what must have been quiet tears.

“Natasha,” he said softly. 

She sniffled, suddenly self-conscious. “I’m fine.”

A hand stroked her back, gently. It felt like heaven. “It’s okay to be affected by a punishment. It wouldn’t make me think less of you.”

She felt something in her rebel against this comment; she had no reason to react this way. It was painful, but she’d faced worse, much worse, without so much as blinking. But his hand was still moving up and down her back, so she put her head back down and nodded.

“Natasha, tell me why you are being punished,” he said then. 

She tensed. 

“Natasha,” he said, voice stern. 

“Because I betrayed you,” she said, voice cracking just a little. “I attacked you. Hurt you.” 

His hand moved from her back to gently stroke her hair. She closed her eyes and tried not to think too hard about how badly she wanted him to keep doing that. 

“No,” he said. “Because you ran from me.”

She didn’t quite understand, but he was still running his fingers through her hair as she lay limply, her ass burning, across his lap.

“Natasha,” he said, sharply.

“Yes, sir,” she said automatically, then sensed how much he liked that response.

She wondered for a moment if he’d like to be called Highness while spanking her, but then decided that while that might be quite fun for her, he probably didn’t want to think about being king at a time like this. Knowing him.

“Natasha. I’m punishing you because you should have stayed to face the consequences. Instead of running from me until you knew you’d have no choice but to face me.”

She paused. “Yes. You’re right. Sir.”

He sighed, rubbing her back again. “Natasha. I’m going to ask you something. And you will answer me truthfully. Do you understand?” 

That sounded dangerous. She didn’t want to promise honesty since there was hardly anything on the list of things she would be completely honest with him about. And she didn't want to break another promise to him.

“Natasha. You will tell me the truth, and if you can’t, you will answer honestly as to why you can’t.” It was a way out, a softening of his demand, even as his voice became firmer, harder, and she was grateful.

“Yes, sir.”

He stroked her hair again. “Do you believe that you are safe with me?”

She thought about the question. It wasn’t what she was expecting. Not after a demand to let him interrogate her.

“Yes,” she said, realizing that she meant it.

“Even when I am angry. You still are safe with me. Yes?”

“Yes, sir.” His hand gently squeezed her shoulder and she closed her eyes to savor the warmth of it.

“And this is hard for you. To admit that you feel safe with someone.”

She breathed in. Her head felt a little cloudy; it was another question she didn’t expect.

“An answer, Natasha,” he said firmly, his hand moving down to her sore ass, pinching lightly at the tender redness, reminding her that she was still at the mercy of his hands.

“It’s…” she began.

“Yes?” he said, soft again.

“It’s hard to… it’s stupid to feel safe,” she finally said, expecting anger from him, or at least disapproval.

His voice showed neither. “You feel stupid for feeling safe with me?”

She swallowed. “I feel stupid for wanting to.” She was no child; why should she need to feel safe? With another person, particularly. 

Clearly, he was about to conclude that she was entirely fucked up. That’s how normal people reacted to … realism.

“Well, I want you to feel safe. Do you understand?” he said, quiet, like he could sense that her stomach felt like it was in knots.

“Yes,” she said, trying to relax.

“Safe from harm,” he added, smile in his voice lightening the mood, “But perhaps not safe from a good hard spanking when you deserve it.”

She smiled. “I understand, sir.”

“Now tell me again why you deserve this punishment. What lesson am I teaching you, Natasha?” he said, returning to a dominant tone.

“If you are angry, I face you. I take my punishment right away,” she said, hoping she understood.

“Yes,” he said, stroking her hair again, “You don’t run away from me. Never again. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” she said, glad that she was still over his lap so she could face down, avoiding his gaze. She told herself that this was just the response of a king who was insulted by her arrogance in thinking she could avoid his wrath, that it was just a way for him to extract a promise that she wouldn’t try to get away with a betrayal ever again.

“Natasha,” he said, voice sharp. “I do not want you to run away from me. Even if you are afraid that I’m angry. If we are in conflict again, you do not disappear. You come to me and we make it right. Is that clear?” 

She hesitated. 

Was he really doing all of this so she wouldn’t disappear on him again? He must have known what she was – a spy, a chameleon, the very personification of a disappearing act. Hardly anyone at all, beyond that.

His hand came down on her ass, _hard_ , so much harder than his previous smacks, and she cried out.

“Natasha, answer me. Even … even if the answer is no, you will answer me.”

“Yes, sir. I don’t run from you. Or if I do, I, I’ll … find a way to be in touch. I… I promise.”

He leaned over and held her tightly. “Good girl,” he said, and it was all she could do to stop herself from melting into a weak-limbed mess and embrace him back. 

He continued spanking her then, again and again, and she closed her eyes and tried not to think about everything he had just said, everything that he had just made her say. She tried to feel nothing but the throbbing pain of the spanking, sharp little blades of pain on her already raw ass and thighs. 

It was just a spanking, she told herself again. Pain didn’t bother her, she reminded herself, and so she focused on it, the hard sting of his hand in bursts of 10 or 20 smacks, interspersed with breaks as he rubbed her back and then gently slid his hand to the back of her neck and whispered to her that he would punish her again and again until she understood what she was to him, as he stroked her hair and told her it was all right, that she could let it out. She didn’t know what he meant by that exactly, but she concentrated on her breathing, on the feel of his hands, rough then gentle then rough again, on the sound of his voice telling her something, something she didn’t quite understand through the haze of pain and bewilderment but that made her feel something deep and heated and needful in her chest. 

It wasn’t until he sat her up and wiped her tears away that she realized how hard she was crying. He held her close, his arms around her, holding her up, her face nestled deep where his neck met his shoulder. She held onto him too as she sat sat in his lap, her arms around his chest, wrapped as tight as she could, as her crying tapered off and she clung to him in silence, nothing but the sound of their heartbeats and breath.


End file.
